Prisca theologia is the doctrine within the field of comparative religious studies that asserts that a single, true, theology exists, which threads through all religions, and which was given by god to man in antiquity. Marsilio Ficino

Marsilio Ficino

Marsilio Ficino was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance, an astrologer, a reviver of Neoplatonism who was in touch with every major academic thinker and writer of his day, and the first translator of Plato's complete extant works into Latin...

 and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

Count Giovanni Pico della Mirandola was an Italian Renaissance philosopher. He is famed for the events of 1486, when at the age of 23, he proposed to defend 900 theses on religion, philosophy, natural philosophy and magic against all comers, for which he wrote the famous Oration on the Dignity of...

 endeavored to reform the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church by means of the writings of the prisca theologia in the fifteenth century. This doctrine is held by, among others, Rosicrucianism. The Enlightenment

Age of Enlightenment

The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...

tended to view all religion as cultural variations on a common anthropological theme.